


Threes

by pansypolaroid



Category: Sevenwaters Trilogy - Juliet Marillier
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansypolaroid/pseuds/pansypolaroid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because sorrows come in threes, a wasting sickness fell upon Sevenwaters the same winter my brothers Cormack and Diarmid were killed. I also dreamt of the Lady Oonagh, and fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [k4writer02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/k4writer02/gifts).



> For k4writer02. I hope you enjoy this! Thanks for loving this series as much as I do; I was thrilled when I got to use this story as an excuse to re-read them all.
> 
> This was my first time participating in Yuletide, and I had a blast.

Because sorrows come in threes, a wasting sickness fell upon Sevenwaters the same winter my brothers Cormack and Diarmid were killed. I also dreamt of the Lady Oonagh, and fire.

\-----

 

The campaign started as any other, with a ceremony by the druids. My brothers set off with fierce smiles on their faces as winter just began to frost the very tops of oak trees. Cormack hugged me tightly; Liam nodded calmly in parting, already thinking of the journey ahead. “Don’t get into too much trouble while we’re gone, little owl,” Diarmid joked, but his eyes were already cold and absent as he readied his horse. Anger gripped the farthest reaches of his heart, even still.  When they moved quickly away into the woods, a shadow passed over my eyes; they were already gone from my sight.

I turned to Red, one step behind me. “Well, Jenny,” he said gravely, “You’d better come here.” I fell into his arms, tears prickling against my eyes. It seemed wrong, I thought, that my brothers should survive the curse of a sorceress and the theft of their bodies only to be felled so soon after being reunited. Conor, visiting with the druids, said nothing, but the touch of his mind to mine was that of peace. _It is the path they chose, and they walk it gladly_ , he thought to me. There was some pain in the thought of their last journey, for him, but also acceptance.

Beside me, Sean clung to his father’s hand. He and Liadan were so small, faces still malleable, limbs coltish. They were not yet six. Niamh twirled gently a few paces away from us, her dress billowing in the coming wind. Although she was older, it seemed to me that Niamh lived in a world of her own, one where her uncles were merely riding out for a jaunt in the woods to find berries in the secret spaces between trees. I envied Niamh in that moment, and went to hug her tight to me.

\-----

 

Red held me closely that night. As I lay my head on his chest, his heartbeat steadied my grief. He didn’t ask why I had already begun to mourn, but he’d never needed to. In the morning, I slipped out to the shore of the lake, and watched the swans drift slowly.

When the sun had risen much farther in the sky, I took myself back home. Halfway there I stopped in a great clearing where trees had been destroyed needlessly by the Lady Oonagh. The husks of great oaks had long been cleared, and those left were now blanketed in moss. There was a hush in the air, and small saplings peaked out from tall grass. It seemed to me, standing quietly, ears strained, that I could just hear laughter on the breeze; a small figure flashed by the corner of my eye. _Fear not, little daughter, for although all paths end, there are many paths yet waiting for you to walk._

Little comfort, I thought wryly, for Diarmid and Cormack, and perhaps Liam, who would likely find their paths coming to a sudden end very soon—But, then again, their paths were my paths and my paths theirs. Where I walked, so did my brothers, if not in flesh then in spirit. While they would fall this winter, I would continue on, carrying some small part of them curled within myself. I dug out a bit of bread and a hunk of cheese from my pocket and set it beside a new sapling in gratitude.

\-----

 

Sevenwaters fought a particularly malevolent wasting illness that winter. The sickness arrived suddenly and without warning; one day, a group of guests from Seamus Redbeard’s holdings had just arrived, and the next day, they were coughing so hard they couldn’t keep down water, and half the village sick with it too. We brewed thick balms of balsam and peppermint to spread on the chests of the ill, with poultices changed daily, but even so, the old and the young began to cough blood. Old Tom’s granddaughter had just recovered from a nasty, lingering cold three moons earlier, but I found her wheezing into a handkerchief nonetheless. Although I burned the handkerchief near an open window with sage and lavender, she was beyond my help.

Liadan stuck to my side constantly, placid and useful despite her years. “The coughing upsets Sean, but I think he’s just scared. I’m not scared, but I do want to help,” she said, when I asked her once more to return to her room in the keep. Her eyes grew sharper in her face than any six year-old I’d ever seen.

“Sounds just like you at that age,” chortled Janis, supporting Old Tom’s granddaughter as she coughed and coughed. “Always starting early, never knowing when to stop, that’s you; two leaves from the same tree, both as stubborn and fey as the other.” Janis’ voice wavered as she also began to cough, but the merriment in her voice stayed with me all afternoon. Liadan only left my side to eat or sleep, after that; she knew where she was needed.

As quickly as the fever had taken so many, it subsided. Those who were ill lingered, as the heat slowly drained out of their body for better or for worse. No new sickness spread, though. I drew more fully upon my supply of herbs without fear that I might run out before the course of the disease was past, and Liadan began to make healing teas of her own.

\-----

 

Two moons later, I fell asleep with Red’s arm curved protectively around my shoulders. I woke up to green fire. The fire grew from a whistle to a roar. Flames licked at my feet. I opened my mouth to yell—and shut it again desperately. Talking wasn’t allowed! Silent, translucent Finbar; speaking would hurt him irreparably. My mouth snapped itself shut. I ran in search of my cave and the precious shirts hidden there. It seemed the whole forest was burning, tree by tree by tree, bark stripping away into nothingness.

In front of me, through the rancid smoke, shapes emerged. A small birch tree, cut in half by an unseen hand; a man’s body, thrown on the ground carelessly like a child’s ragdoll; a woman, perfect figure shaking with laughter. “Oh, my dear step-daughter, look at you run. Is there yet time to escape, to pretend all’s well? Or will you throw yourself into the fire once more?” Her eyes glinted malevolently. “Now, what do you have to say for yourself? I’m listening keenly, Sorcha.” There were words, many words, for the Lady Oonagh, but I could not speak them; and thus, hemmed in on both sides by fire and a sorceress, I flew upward. My arms became wings and my mind began to slip away.

 

Red’s shaking woke me in the night’s quietest hour. I was unscathed, with not a touch of soot upon my whole body. Out in the deep woods, I heard an owl call. Even underneath blankets, the night was freezing.

Red said, quietly, “When I hear the wind rushing through the trees on cold nights, I remember standing guard outside your room at Harrowfield. Sometimes I thought you might be crying in your sleep, and I wanted to hold you and listen to you speak. I knew your voice would be the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.”

 

\----- 

 

Liam’s homecoming was a sadness and a relief. Four men carried the bodies of Diarmid and Cormack on rough palanquins, but Liam let me draw back the covering from only one body.

Once it was done, I held my three children close; Niamh sniffled once, but Sean and Liadan already stood firm and dry-eyed. Red kept near, telling Liam somberly about the ewes lost this past winter and the roof above the kitchens, which had begun a slow and inexorable collapse. We walked slowly from the edge of the trees into the great hall, and there we ate and drank in remembrance of the deceased. My eyes were dry; I’d done all my crying months earlier. But I did have two stories to tell. I decided to start with Cormack.

I stood, closing my eyes. For a moment, caught between grief and fear for the future, no words came to me. But Red’s big hand caught mine, and I saw Niamh watching me sleepily from across the hall, legs tucked in tight with Liadan’s. My mouth opened, and I heard a rush of feathers, birds’ wings beating frantically towards me.

 

And then all was silent, and I began to speak. “What better tale than that of Cormack, not yet fifteen summers, conspiring to go to battle with his brothers? Cormack was brave, and wise for his years, but very stubborn. Now, Colum, stern father and protector of Sevenwaters those past twenty years, had forbidden Cormack from following his family into the fight, but Cormack knew he must go…”

Across the hall, Liam began to smile. Wind beat against the hall, and I talked on.

 


End file.
